UC San Diego

Over the past century, China has undertaken the strenuous work of developing its own civil code to regulate civil matters. The codification project began in the early 20th century and culminated in 1930 with the enactment of China’s first Civil Code. In the meantime, the philosophy, culture, and mentality in the courtroom also changed, influenced by the new civil codification and professional training of legal professionals. These changes were not limited to a specific temporal or spatial context but denoted a transformation of the culture of judicial practice in China that accompanied the modernization of law. Drawing on cases from the Beijing High Court (1912–1928), this dissertation examines how appellate judges in Beijing reviewed decisions from lower courts in marriage-related cases and how judges reasoned through and resolved cases by adapting the newly introduced civil law tradition to traditional Chinese legal culture. Given that the legitimacy of normativity originated from different sources, this dissertation argues that there emerged an meso ground between potential legal bases and judicial decisions, where an array of legal bases was collated, debated, and reconciled in alignment with societal norms and traditions to develop compelling judgments. In some particular cases, this meso ground was fluid, embracing both domestic and foreign legal concepts. Leveraging the flexibility of translation, this meso ground also worked to integrate the historical legacy of imperial Chinese law and the fresh realities, ambitions, and legal trajectory of China during the early 20th century. This methodology and philosophy regarding the organization of law in China came to be called as multisourcing and has endured to the present day.